Tamsin Reid
A school of enchantment wizard who primarily works as a fortune teller. Con woman and grifter. Appearance Thick dark red curly hair. Tanned and freckled skin. Hazel eyes. Thick eyelashes. Wide, full lips. Long straight nose. High arching brow with widow's peak. Short and curvy. Hands are more calloused than probably would be expected. Small hands and feet. AS LILIA: really plays into the vibe of the circus. Big eccentric gold jewellery, multiple piercings in her ears and nose. Dramatic makeup. Wearings flowing low cut dresses in bright colours. AS HERSELF: not too different? takes off some of the jewellery and the makeup but still dresses rather over the top. Her clothes are practical, but also stylised and made to make her look good. Think corsetry and embroidery. Prefers dresses and skirts over trousers. Still pretty flowy but in more muted colours day-to-day. Has a waist belt with a leather bag on it - component bag. Other bags on the belt contain travelling gear and a multitude of religious symbols she has collected on her travels and through her work with the Archaeologists' Guild. A dark cloak for travelling. Usually can be found with a black cat around her ankles, or a raven on her shoulder. Background Tamsin was born on Taehia, one of the islands of the Trifecta (along with Butzhol and Altheel). Her family were relatively well off. Her mom was a minor government official, her mam a teacher at a prestigious school and her dad a doctor. She has an older brother she adored and looked up to. Llewellyn was good at school, good at sports, handsome and everyone loved him. She wanted to be just like him. At the same time, she was horrendously jealous. Tamsin was good at things as well, and well liked, and pretty, but it never seemed as important because Llewellyn had gotten there first. Tamsin was only young when her mam noticed she had a talent for magic. Her parents were thrilled, and Tamsin felt like she had their undivided attention for the first time ever. They immediately wrote to their contacts and enrolled her in the Negeri School for Wizardry, a boarding school in the Trifecta's capital. Tamsin lived there for nearly a decade. Most her subjects, she took to like a duck to water. She loved magic, loved it was a thing she could do but Llewellyn couldn't. She created fire to melt the frost in winter, created illusions to entertain her friends, charmed strangers on the street. However, she could never quite get the hang of divination.Which was a shame, because she really enjoyed it. She would love to be able to tell the future. For the first time, she actually had to try at something, but it didn't bother her as much as it usually did. This didn't please her parents. They expected her to be good at all aspects of wizardry, and couldn't understand why she kept failing divination. It didn't matter that she was top of her class in enchantment. They wrote her letter after letter, telling her the strings they'd pulled to get her into the school and how she wasn't living up to their expectations and how Llewellyn wouldn't waste an opportunity like this and - They fought a lot, when she was home. Especially with her mam. Eventually, it got to her. So she couldn't meet their expectations. So she wouldn't waste their efforts then. She walked. Left the school with as much of her possessions as she could carry and walked away. Conveniently, there was a circus just pulling up in town. She had read all the classic runaway books and knew that the best thing for a runaway to do was join the circus. Tamsin asked them if they had any openings. As luck would have it, they could use a roadie. And Tamsin joined the circus. After about a year travelling, their fortune teller - a lovely woman who went by the name Madame Flavella but was actually called Georgie - decided she was tired of nomadic life. Her and one of the trapeze artists had fallen in love and they wanted to settle down and start a family. Her departure left an opening, which Tamsin was pleased to fulfil. She did love divination after all. She still sucked at divination. Turns out being out of school for a year does not just give you the knack. It was alright to begin with; the only people whose fortunes she told were common folk, and it didn't matter so much if she got that wrong. 6 months in, though, they were in Dewton on Butzhol, and she 'told the fortune' of the Lord Commander, Lennard Kilmar. She advised him - after a dodgy attempt at Augury - that his plans for the following evening were solid, that he had nothing to worry about, that what he was envisioning would not come to pass. Boy was she wrong. The Lord Commander was found the next day with his mistress. By his wife. Caught with his mistress, who was a spy for Ostaria. Because the Lord Commander had been feeding them information about the Trifecta in return for a hefty paycheque. He was furious. He came charging for the circus, gunning for Tamsin's blood for assuring him that he would be fine. Her troupe somehow managed to hide her, to get her out of the country with no bloodshed, but it was a near thing. Despite this, going back to the Trifecta was probably out for Tamsin because the Lord Commander plastered her face everywhere as a person of interest. Tamsin left the circus at that point; they were safer without her there. She set up herself as a street fortune teller, drifting from town to town and island to island without fixed abode. It was a hard life, and not one she particularly enjoyed or was used to even after 1.5 years with the circus. She was determined to survive on her own, though. Her parents hadn't thought she could do it. In one of their last arguments before she left, her mam had yelled that she would have been nothing without this family, that she was nothing alone. Tamsin was not nothing. She was something. She would be something. And if divination was her weak spot? Fine, she'd work around it. With her spellbook in hand, she started grifting her way through the islands around the Trifecta. Trial and error taught her that if she couldn’t actually tell the future, Suggesting and Charming people was just as good. The one divination spell she could do, Detect Thoughts, wasn’t good for telling the future but it did help her figure out what her clients wanted to hear. Then it was just a matter of convincing them she predicted it. When she wasn’t telling fortunes as the mystical Madame Quince, she began researching – looking in to the Old Magicks from the forgotten times that might make her better than she is. She found a special interest in the First Magical Age, an Age that scholars knew hardly anything about. The Age in which magic entered the world for the first time. If Tamsin could figure out how that happened, she might be able to harness it for herself and tap into a well of magic unseen for millennia. About a year after she left the Trifecta, she found herself on the Wretched Hive. She was chasing a lead on a pirate that claimed to have an artefact from an early temple to Nut, the primordial goddess of the sky, that was said to still have magic attached to it. She was doing her act one day, charming an old pirate out of his coin, when she met Blagden. The young goblin was trying to pickpocket her mark and got caught. Seeing that she was about to lose her paycheque, Tamsin managed to convince him to let the thief go. Reluctantly, he did and Tamsin managed to finish her reading. Only, the goblin didn’t leave her alone after that. He followed her back to where she was staying, and again when she decided to leave the island. Tamsin was amused at first, then confused, and then inured to it. Eventually she just got used to Blagden being around and started getting fond of him. When they’d been travelling together a while, Tamsin noticed that Blagden was picking the pockets of her marks. She didn’t mind, per se, but she saw an opportunity. If Blagden could find out any information from her marks from what he stole and then communicate it to her, she could do more accurate reads and get more money from it. And just like that, they became a proper duo. Tamsin began teaching Blagden little tricks and spells to help him with the thievery, and she began an elaborate act to distract from the small goblin who would dart among the crowds and let her know intimate information about her audience before she told them what they wanted to know. They made a good team. Tamsin kept up her studies on the side whenever she got the chance. Eventually, she and Blagden made their way to Ilbidor, where Tamsin learnt about the Archaeologists' Guild. She began convincing Blagden to join up with her straight away. If they did, she argued, they would get to see lots of old, valuable stuff. And they would get to keep the stuff. And they would get paid for the stuff they didn’t keep. On a personal level, Tamsin hoped to get more information on the First Magical Age and the primordial gods. No luck as yet, but she’s waiting. She also likes the stuff though. On their first dig, Tamsin found an old pair of gold plate earrings, which she took for use in her act. She thinks they add a little something authentic to Lilia’s outfit. She still tells fortunes as a day job, in between missions for the Guild. Lilia Quince remains a staple in markets and harbours, entrancing people with her magical ways. Come see her, she might tell you about your destiny. Or she’ll charm you. You might never know the difference. Personality Flattery is my preferred trick for getting what I want. I keep multiple holy symbols on me and invoke whatever deity might come in useful at any given moment. Good at the cold read and uses this in her grifts. Has sympathy for the struggles in their lives; a lot of people come to her for fun, yes, but others come because they genuinely do need support so she's seen a lot. Sensitive to the fact she's not actually any good at divination and gets defensive about it. A con woman to the bone; good at interacting with people in general, good at being what they want her to be, less good at being herself. Protective over what and who she sees as hers. Intelligent, adaptable and agreeable. Wants things to go as smoothly as possible, whenever possible. Likes to collect trinkets and obsessive about her image. Always wants to appear perfect and a perfectionist to the core. Simultaneously shameless and has very little insecurity about her body. Hot and she knows it and uses this to get what she wants. Would rather give up on something than persevere if she isn't immediately good at it. Feels absolutely no shame about fleecing people - sees it as giving people what they want and - hey - at least she isn't outright stealing. Likes knowing everything and hates being shown up. Is known to throw a strop from time to time. Her obsession with her image means she can seem superficial and vapid. Has a tendency for melodrama. Relationships * Blagden Ogden: Blagden and Tamsin have been travelling together for a number of years. They are good friends; Blagden is probably the only person that Tamsin genuinely cares for at this point. * Tamsin's family: She hasn't seen them in 7 years, since she left wizard school. ** Llewelyn Reid: Tamsin's older brother. Human. Works as a city council member on Taehia. ** David Reid: Tamsin's dad. Human. Works as a doctor. ** Cara Deacon: Tamsin's mom. Human. Works as a Representative of Taehia's 18th district, the city of Jothram. ** Maegan Swiftfoot: Tamsin's mam. Halfling. Works as a lecturer in Island History and Politics at the Academy for Higher Learning on Taehia. Category:PCs Category:Characters Category:Ziggurats